NBTA Tries Standardizing Air RFP
07.21.2008 - The National Business Travel Association aviation committee during the NBTA 2008 International Convention and Exposition in Los Angeles plans to unveil its first comprehensive airline request-for-proposals template in a bid to standardize the airline negotiating process.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Retailer Finds The Best Buy For Hotels, Meetings
07.21.2008 - Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy last year saved more than $7 million by revamping its hotel program sourcing processes, developing a strategic meetings management program and using its combined $22 million to $25 million annual North American air volume to negotiate with Air Canada for point-of-sale discounts.
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StarCite Mining Hotel Quotes To Predict Average Mtg. Rates
07.21.2008 - Meetings management technology company StarCite now offers buyers and hotels real-time quoted group room rates, averaged by city and property tier, based on electronic request-for-proposals data submitted through its Web site.
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Cos. Increasingly Cutting Back Travel
07.21.2008 - Cutbacks in corporate travel, which previously had seemed to be contained within financial services and pharmaceutical markets, now are being instituted at many other companies. In some cases, buyers report cutting travel spending by more than 20 percent. Such buyers are pushing hard to reduce the number of trips and cut travel budgets to offset the rising prices, massive spikes in fuel costs and the potential for a business slowdown.
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BTN's 2008 Travel Manager Salary & Attitude Survey
07.21.2008 - The 25th annual edition of Business Travel News' Travel Manager Salary & Attitude Survey is the first in which the average travel manager respondent earns a six-figure salary, a $100,402 figure that is 3.3 percent higher than the $97,161 average BTN reported in 2007.
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BTN Names Best Meeting Practitioners Of 2008
07.21.2008 - Business Travel News congratulates its Best Meeting Practitioners of 2008: Cindy Heston, Thomson SA manager of corporate travel worldwide; Kevin Iwamoto, Hewlett-Packard global corporate card, hotels and meetings commodity manager; and Paul Tomaszeski, Novartis executive director of business support services. Each practitioner, in their own way, is emblematic of a meetings industry seeking the best methods by which to strategically manage its spending.
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Industry Sees Air Bankruptcies, Liquidations On The Horizon
07.21.2008 - With fuel maintaining historic highs and an emerging consensus that the airline business is unsustainable at its current size, the industry is awaiting the next shoe to drop in the form of bankruptcies or liquidations.
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Continental Takes Star Turn
06.30.2008 - Continental's plan to leave SkyTeam and tightly align with United Airlines and its Star Alliance partners comes short of the merger agreement many expected earlier this year, but the move poses a competitive defense against the strengthened SkyTeam alliance as the Delta-Northwest deal moves forward.
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Profiles In Travel Management: Tyco Uses Agency Tools To Upgrade Travel Program
06.30.2008 - Changes Tyco International made to its travel program last year—including transitioning to a new online booking tool, updating its global travel policy and beginning the process of formalizing a meetings management program—are on pace to save the manufacturing conglomerate millions of dollars in 2008 from expenditures that included $32.2 million in 2007 U.S. booked air volume.
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Locales Levy Taxi Fuel Fees
06.30.2008 - Several of the largest business travel destinations have introduced or are considering introducing taxicab fuel surcharges in response to increasing gas prices.
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2009 Hotel Season To See Slight Delay: Hoteliers Gauge Economy As Some Buyers Revisit '08 Deals
06.30.2008 - Buyers could face slight delays in hotel negotiations this year and reluctance for multiyear deals as hoteliers wait to see how the economy pans out. Yet consultants warn against allowing too much of a delay in the request-for-proposals process. At the same time, some buyers are using the economic dip as a chance for strategic renegotiation of 2008 rates, but hoteliers said it's happening only on a small scale.
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One-On-One With CWT's Douglas Anderson: Mega CEO Eyes Cost, Growth Plans
06.30.2008 - New Carlson Wagonlit Travel president and CEO Douglas Anderson recently spoke with Business Travel News editor-in-chief David Meyer and travel management editor Seth Harris about shedding costs, finding the right mix of acquisitive and organic growth and keeping the company at full speed in the current economic conditions.
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First-Bag Fee Immunity Adds Value For Frequent Flyers
06.30.2008 - Corporate travel buyers used to consider elite status in airline frequent flyer programs a soft dollar benefit, but as American Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways now shield their most frequent travelers from fees to check their first piece of luggage, such negotiated deal sweeteners are proving to have hard dollar value.
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BTN's 2008 Business Travel Survey
06.09.2008 - The 24th annual Business Travel Survey focuses on business travel suppliers' 2007, a good year that began to unravel before it ended as fuel prices spiraled out of control, the value of the dollar plummeted, the U.S. mortgage crisis hit home, retail sales slumped and corporate travel demand began to show some softening. Now, dire circumstances have created an environment that demands change.
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BTN's 2008 Business Travel Survey
06.09.2008 - The 24th annual Business Travel Survey focuses on business travel suppliers' 2007, a good year that began to unravel before it ended as fuel prices spiraled out of control, the value of the dollar plummeted, the U.S. mortgage crisis hit home, retail sales slumped and corporate travel demand began to show some softening. Now, dire circumstances have created an environment that demands change.
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Carriers Slash U.S. Capacity
06.09.2008 - Domestic airline industry downsizing continued in recent weeks as several carriers announced steep capacity withdrawals, employee reductions and fleet retirements to cope with unrelenting fuel costs. Industry analysts said further reductions are likely—as are higher fares, more crowded planes and reduced schedules.
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Siemens Seeks Protection For Corporate Travel Data
06.09.2008 - Siemens Shared Services director of travel management Steven Schoen, alarmed at the extent to which his data is being sold to companies with which he does not even do business, is pursuing a solution with his preferred travel management and global distribution system companies to protect the privacy of employee travel patterns.
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ACTE/BTN's Corporate Travel World Reporter's Notebook: Buyers Brace For Managing Demand
06.09.2008 - Washington, D.C. - Travel buyers are bracing for the difficult economy through tighter controls on expenses as well as reducing the number of trips through remote conferencing, according to a panel of Corporate Travel 100 travel managers meeting during the Business Travel News' Corporate Travel World and the Assocation of Corporate Travel Executives' Global Education Conference collocated here last month.
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One-On-One With Amadeus' David Jones: Amadeus To Further Airline Retailing
06.09.2008 - Amadeus by 2010 plans to roll out its Airline Retailing Platform to offer merchandizing, upselling and unbundling options to airlines through the global distribution system. Executive vice president of commercial David Jones sat down with BTN senior editor Jay Boehmer late last month to discuss the platform's evolution.
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Hotel CEOs See Fewer Rate Hikes, More Discounts Ahead
06.09.2008 - Hotel chief executives this month acknowledged tougher times for the next year and a half and an upcoming corporate hotel negotiating season that will be, from their perspective, more difficult in which to increase rates. The executives also said the United States will comprise a shrinking proportion of their overall portfolio as their development focus moves decidedly eastward.
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